Robur the Conqueror. Jules Verne

theme of revolt may also explain why Robur’s opponents, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, are not described in detail or even much differentiated. Their main function is not to play separate parts, but to represent the Weldon Institute and society in general. Like Nadar’s propaganda for the Heavier-Than-Air Society, the novel’s central conflict is not confined to aircraft versus aerostats, but also takes on human terms: Robur versus institute, man versus society, underdog versus establishment. This is a book that has it both ways, dreaming with utopian bravado even as it thumbs its nose at the societal conformity that utopias imply.

      Like most of Verne’s novels, Robur was grievously mistreated by English translators.⁵⁷ Two versions were rushed into print in 1887, but both are unsigned, embarrassing hack jobs. The Clipper of the Clouds (London: Sampson Low) is littered with cuts, mistranslations, new chapter divisions, and other pointless changes; the Walton Watch Company, apparently in a heavy-handed attempt at wordplay, becomes the “Wheelem” in one chapter and the “Wheelton” in another. Robur the Conqueror (New York: Munro, also known as A Trip Round the World in a Flying Machine) is even worse, axing descriptive details mercilessly and importing piles of unauthorized changes and additions; the Weldon Institute is demoted to the Weldon Club, and new un-Vernian character names (J. O. Tombler, George Kerns) appear out of nowhere. For a typical example of how these translations misrepresented Robur’s content and tone, consider the following brief passage from chapter 8 in a close rendering of Verne’s text:

      The next day, June 15, at about five a.m., Phil Evans left his cabin. Perhaps that day he would come face to face with the engineer Robur?

      In any case, wanting to know why he had not appeared the previous day, he addressed the quartermaster, Tom Turner.

      Tom Turner, of English origin, about forty-five years old, barrel-chested, stocky, built of iron, had one of those enormous and distinctive heads in Hogarth style, such as that painter of every kind of Saxon ugliness plotted out with the tip of his brush. If one cares to examine the fourth plate of A Harlot’s Progress, one will find Tom Turner’s head on the shoulders of the prison guard, and one will recognize that his physiognomy has nothing welcoming about it.

      “Will we see the engineer Robur today?” said Phil Evans.

      “I don’t know,” replied Tom Turner.

      The equivalent passage in The Clipper of the Clouds (chapter 10, because of Sampson Low’s restructuring) is markedly abridged:

      The next day, the 15th of June, about five o’clock in the morning, Phil Evans left his cabin. Perhaps he would today have a chance of speaking to Robur? Desirous of knowing why he had not appeared the day before, Evans addressed himself to the mate, Tom Turner.

      Tom Turner was an Englishman of about forty-five, broad in the shoulders and short in the legs, a man of iron, with one of those enormous characteristic heads that Hogarth rejoiced in.

      “Shall we see Mr. Robur to-day?” asked Phil Evans.

      “I don’t know,” said Turner.

      Munro’s Robur correctly puts the passage in chapter 8, but that version is even worse:

      The next morning, the 15th of June, Phil Evans left his cabin at about five o’clock, thinking he might probably meet Robur, but he was unable to see the captain either on the deck or in the dining-room. He resolved to discover, at all events, why Robur had not appeared during the day, and he addressed himself to the foreman, George Kerns. George Kerns was of English origin, about forty-five years of age, with a large and characteristic head surmounting a powerfully built body. A man of a practical turn of mind and of a mechanical knowledge that rendered him invaluable to his captain.

      “Shall we see Captain Robur to-day?” inquired Phil Evans.

      “I do not know.”

      Later English-language editions have merely reprinted one of these two old translations or abridged them still more, producing texts even further away from Verne’s intentions.⁵⁸ The new from-the-ground-up translation that follows, based directly on the illustrated grand-in-8° Hetzel edition, is the first complete and faithful rendering of the novel into English.

      My heartfelt thanks go to all those who generously lent help and advice to the project, including Jean-Michel Margot, Arthur B. Evans, J. Randolph Cox, Frédéric Jaccaud of the Maison d’Ailleurs, and the editorial board of Verniana. They and others have done much to shed light on a truly remarkable book: Robur the Conqueror, Jules Verne’s seminal ode to the possibilities of heavier-than-air flight. The Albatross is waiting for us. Let’s get aboard.

       —Alex Kirstukas

       Robur

      THE CONQUEROR

      CHAPTER

      1

       In which the learned and unlearned worlds are equally baffled

      Bang! … Bang! …

      The two pistols were fired almost at the same time. A cow, grazing fifty paces away, received one of the bullets in her spine. Even so, she had had nothing to do with the duel.

      Neither one of the two adversaries had been hit.

      Who were these two gentlemen? That remains unknown, and yet, beyond all doubt, this might have been the occasion to preserve their names for posterity. All that can be said is that the older one was an Englishman, the younger an American. As for indicating where the inoffensive ruminant had just grazed her last tuft of grass, nothing could be easier. It was on the right bank of the Niagara River, not far from the suspension bridge that connects the American and Canadian sides, three miles below Niagara Falls.¹

      The Englishman then approached the American:

      “I tell you again it was ‘Rule Britannia!’” he said.

      “No! It was ‘Yankee Doodle!’” returned the other.

      The quarrel was about to begin anew when one of the witnesses—no doubt acting in the interest of livestock—interposed and said:

      “Let’s say it was ‘Rule Doodle’ and ‘Yankee Britannia,’ and go to lunch!”

      This compromise between the two national songs of America and Great Britain was adopted, to universal satisfaction. Americans and Englishmen went back together up the left bank of the Niagara River, and went to eat at the hotel on Goat Island—a neutral terrain between the two falls.² As they are busy doing justice to boiled eggs, traditional ham, cold beef seasoned with flaming pickles, and tea in such torrential quantities as to make the celebrated cataracts jealous, we will not bother them any further.³ It is highly unlikely, in fact, that they will ever be mentioned again in this story.

      Neither one had been hit.

      Who was right, the Englishman or the American? It would have been difficult to say. In any case, the duel showed how passionate public opinion had become, not only in the new continent but also in the old one, about an inexplicable phenomenon which, for about a month, had turned every brain upside down.

      … Os sublime dedit coelumque tueri,

      said Ovid of the greatest honor bestowed upon the human